E 



T-r 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I ^4^ :E±Ti. I 



UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



M Mtmormh 



STEPHEN ELLIOTT, 



GENERJL, C.S.A. 




THE HON. WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT, 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



LONDON: 
SAUNDERS, 07 LEY, AND C 

66, BROOK STREET, W.C. 

1867. 




THE LATE 



General Stephen Elliott. 



EULOGY 



BY 



THE HON. WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT. 



Delivei^ed in the House of Representatives of South Carolina^ 

Friday, September 7, 1866. 




LONDON: - 
SAUNDERS, OTLEY, AND CO., 

66, BROOK STREET, W.C. 
1867. 



e<^ r- 



\ 



i^ 



EULOGY 



OF THE LATE 



GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT, 



Mr. Speaker, — I rise to second the resolutions which have 
just been read. In doing so, I must ask the indulgence of the 
House if I speak somewhat more at length than the pro- 
^T-L^i^^-^-* ppydrfi of snrh an occasion ordinarily warrant. General Elliott 
was no ordinary man. Beside his individual virtues, he was 
the representative of much in Carolina life that has passed 
away for ever ; and the circumstances under which we are 
met to-day to do honour to his memory, may well fill all our 
minds with sad and serious thought. 

Since I have been a Member of this House, it has been 
my painful privilege to join more than once in the expres- 
sion of our sorrow for the loss of colleagues, honoured in 
their lives and mourned in their deaths. Then, however, our 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



sorrow was not without hope. Our grief was tempered with 
patriotic pride ; we beUeved that they were martyrs in a holy 
cause ; we felt^ as we laid them gently and reverently upon the 
bosom of the State they loved, that the time was not far 
distant when that State, free, strong, radiant in the glory of 
their fame, would gather her living children around the graves 
of her dead, and consecrate their memories to immortal grati- 
tude. And they themselves went out to meet death with joy, 
in the assurance of victory. You must recollect, Sir, the 
touching incident which is told of a lad who was borne, fatally 
wounded, from the field of the first Manassas. As his friends 
stopped him to ask his condition, he pointed back to the 
battle-field, and exclaimed, "Don't mind me; the army is 
there, father is there, the country is there." So these men, 
as they passed away, pointed to the battle-fields upon which 
they had fallen, and by their examples exclaimed, " Don't 
mind us; our army is there, our kindred are there, our country 
is there." But to-day. Sir, where is our army ? where are our 
kindred ? where is our country ? 

And when, in the darkness that has come upon us, we 
gather with broken hopes and bitter memories around the 
grave of another who came back to us from the great conflict 
shattered and death-stricken, who lingered only long enough 
to see the desolation of his own home, the humiliation of his 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 5 

own State, and then lay down to die, — what words can com- 
fort such a grief? How can we cheat that grave of its vic- 
tory, how deprive that death of its sting ? 

We know now, that for our lost cause such a life as 
Stephen Elliott's was a great and useless sacrifice ; but for 
that very reason ought it to hold a ninrc dearer place in our 
affections. Indeed, I use no exaggerated language when I 
say that such lives are doubly precious to us now, for they 
are our only vindication to posterity. We have but a sorrow- 
ful history to teach our children. We must tell them that, 
in the pride of a strength and wisdom which we did not 
possess, we inaugurated a rev^olution which we could not 
achieve, — that, in the unequal strife, our past power and our 
future hopes were alike broken in blood. Our vindication 
with them and in history must be that we ventured on this 
terrible issue in an honest, earnest, unquestioning conviction 
of the truth, under the solemn obligation of our duty to 
maintain inviolate those principles of constitutional liberty 
which we had inherited, and that it was no unworthy effort 
which, at the close of such a war, had cleared our great 
defeat from shame, and given dignity to our disaster ; and, 
as we trusted, for our hour of expected triumph, to the 
strong and simple manhood, the unambitious and unflinching 
obedience to duty, the heroic achievement of soldiers like 



O THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 

him, — so, in the hour of our reverse, when God has taught 
us that neither human courage nor human wisdom can con- 
trol the issues of His providence, we can point to their ex- 
amples as fitting illustration of the spirit in which we fought, 
and tell, as a lesson that shall never die, how, like the French 
soldier, who, when desperately wounded, thrust into the sabre- 
gash the Cross of the Legion which the Emperor had given 
him, lest it should be taken away, these brave men hid in 
their wounds, and carried to the safe and sacred custody of 
the grave, the honour of the cause they served. 

And the example of a man like General Elliott is only 
the more valuable because he was not one of the great names 
of history. He .commanded no large armies; he won no 
famous battles : he simply did his duty where his country 
put him. 

Stephen Elliott was born in 1830, at Beaufort, in this 
State, and was the eldest son of the Rev. Stephen Elliott and 
Ann Hutson, Habersham. His father was one of the most 
highly-respectable gentlemen of that section of the State. 
He was a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, and a large 
and successful planter, who, combining the duties of both 
positions, had devoted himself with great usefulness to mis- 
sionary work among the negroes. For many years preceding 
the war he had declined the rectorship of a regular congre- 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 7 

gation, and, having built a church upon his own plantation, 
preached regularly and most efficiently to the slaves of the 
neighbourhood. They were both members of a family long 
and honourably known in the history of the State. Among 
the earliest settlers of the colony, they were established in 
name and fortune at the Revolution. Without attempting to 
achieve that sort of reputation which attaches to eminent 
public life, they possessed, and through many generations 
maintained, a large and useful local influence, representing 
their parishes in the House and the Senate of the State 
Legislature ; cultivating with success their extensive estates, 
exercising a graceful and genial hospitality, and discharging, 
with conscientious responsibility, their duties as citizens. One 
characteristic strongly marked all the race, — combination of 
scholarly taste with an enthusiastic devotion to the sports of 
the iield, sometimes developing into an affectionate study of 
nature, as in the well-known botanical researches of Stephen 
Elliott the elder ; sometimes into profound and elegant scho- 
larship, as in the life and labours of Bishop Elliott, and some- 
times into such a special character as the late Hon. William 
Elliott, a gentleman of many and varied accomplishments, 
for many years a member of the State Senate, the friend and 
companion of Petigru and Grayson, in their hours of lettered 
leisure ; the hero of many a woodland chase, and the model 



8 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



of every Beaufort boy, who, for the first time, waded into 
the surf at Bay Point to throw his line for bass, or saw, with 
trembling eagerness, the great wings of the devil-fish flash on 
the broad waters of Port Royal. 

General Elliott was nurtured and reared in the town of 
Beaufort, where he was born, — old Beaufort. It was a block 
house, surrounded with a few scattered dwellings, in the days 
of the Yemassee wars ; and it needed strong arms and stout 
hearts to win acre after acre of the rich hunting lands which 
spread round it. But shrewd trade and hard blows did their 
work. Surely and slowly the men of Beaufort stretched out 
their hands and grasped all that beautiful and bountiful 
country that lay between the Combahee and the Pocotaligo, 
and along the great water of Broad River. Upon the lands 
which they took from the savage whom they could not tame, 
they placed the savage whom they could tame. From godly 
Boston and pious Providence came the crowded slave-ships, 
and the white man's brain and the black man's strength 
worked together to send cargo after cargo of rice and indigo 
to the mother-country. Then came the Revolution ; and the 
sons of the men who fought the Indians for the Crown, with 
the same persevering courage fought the Crown for their 
country. After their hard-won victory, they grew and pros- 
pered. The forests vanished before their energy, and the 



THE- LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



islands that lay between them and the sea became tributary 
to their skill. 

Every year broader fields grew white with the great staple 
of their agriculture. The savage whom they had taught 
to work become a contented and ^r i il ■•'■■] labourer ; wealth 
brought elegance to their homes, and culture gave finish to 
the natural refinement of their manners. Where the old 
block-house stood were gathered the homes of happy Chris- 
tian households. It was indeed a place of homes, for no 
commerce rufiied the placid surface of its bay, no trade dis- 
turbed the shady quiet of its streets ; its fair houses and 
noble gardens were scarcely mum peaceful than their tranquil 
shadows in the waters that surrounded them. Long years of 
prosperity and power had given to its inhabitants a touch of 
no ignoble pride. Their lands had changed hands by pur- 
chase less, perhaps, than in any other portion of the State, 

and their wealth had been the steady increase of the same la- 
bour from father to son. As in all small communities, near 

enough in neighbourhood and kindred to secure intimacy 
among its members from childhood, they were shy and re- 
served with strangers ; but they were kind masters, good 
neighbours, true friends, active and intelligent planters. Simple 
in their tastes, absorbed in their agricultural pursuits, they 
found in the domestic incidents of their households matter 



Ol.ar-<- -^1- ^ /?^ 



ta-A^ 



lO THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 

for perpetual and kindly interest ; and rich indeed were those 
households with the fragrance of as pure and beautiful a do- 
mestic life as ev^er filled an earthly home. With very little 
incentive, and perhaps less disposition to public ambition, 
they preserved that strong interest in politics which education 
and the consciousness of a great stake in the administration 
of the country always give ; and among them, both honoured 
and loved, was more than .one man whose character and abi- 
lity had large public influence. But in politics they were in- 
tolerant believers in a very simple creed : it could be summed 
up in one commandment — "Love South Carolina." I will 
not vindicate its wisdom. All very strong feeling is apt to 
run into error by its exaggeration. A statesman would call it 
narrow; a philosopher would call it weak ; but it was broad 
enough to cover their lives, it was strong enough to support 
them in death. 

If I have dwelt too long upon the character of this com- 
munity, the House will forgive me. For many years I lived 
among them. I speak of men I loved, of homes in which 
I was welcome. I cannot forget that of those I knew, 
many a proud head is humbled, many a brave heart is still, 
many a sweet and gentle face is shadowed with an everlasting 
grief. The fire on their hearths is gone out for ever ; ribaldry 
and ruffianism have run riot in homes where dwelt domestic 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



II 



love and household honour ; and, by an act of cruel, lawless, 
and iniquitous spoliation, a whole society, which, in its tra- 
ditions, its industry, its courage, its refinement, and its virtues, 
represented for many generations the best traits of Carolina 
character, has utterly perished. 

And it was in this community, and amid such influences, 
that General Elliott grew to manhood. As a boy he won the 
affection and confidence of his comrades, and was as much 
their leader then as Captain Elliott was when, at the com- 
mencement of the war, he took command of their chosen 
company. They all recognized his quick and practical intel- 
ligence, his untiring energy, his venturesome spirit, the skill 
with which he used his gun or managed his boat. By the 
time he was a v/ell-grown youth he had acquired a quick eye, 
steady nerve, that habit of self-reliance which sport full of 
danger always cultivates, and that knowledge of the country 
which was to be of such great service to him in the future. 
For there was not a winding creek, not a cut-off through the 
marshes, not a dangerous shoal in the navigation from Poco- 
taligo to the ocean, that he did not know. After sound and 
solid preparation at the excellent school in Beaufort, he went 
to Cambridge, and thence to the South Carolina College, and 
there graduated with credit, — not a scholar, perhaps, himself, 
but with a genuine and educated appreciation of the value of 



SCiuL, CHa.-v^ 



12 THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 

scholarship in others. Soon after his return, he married one 
of his early companions^ v>^ho had grown into graceful and 
accomplished womanhood^ and then settled upon one of the 
beautiful islands that looks out upon the ocean where Broad 
River widens into Port Royal Harbour. There^ carrying out 
the lessons he learned from his excellent father, he lived, a 
kind and judicious master among his people, cultivated his 
estate with signal success, and looked through the vista of 
coming years to a long life of honourable usefulness and 
great happiness. 

But in i860 the State seceded, and in 1861 called upon 
her sons to redeem the pledges she had made. Intimations 
not to be disregarded warned the Government that one of 
the earliest demonstrations of the power of the United States 
would be made upon the coast of Carolina. Preparation was 
made rapidly, and, as was then thought, efficiently, to meet 
the danger. The harbour of Port Royal, which seemed the 
probable point of attack, was defended by two forts ; and 
Captain Elliott, who had been elected to the command of the 
Beaufort Artillery, was placed in charge of the batteries at 
Bay Point, one of the localities that was supposed to com- 
mand the entrance of the harbour. The capture of Fort 
Sumter, and the result of the first battle of Manassas, had 
given undue confidence to our spirits, and led us to underrate 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT, 



13 



the capacity for war of those with whom we were in conflict. 
The summer passed tranquilly by, but in the shortening days 
of October the people of Charleston, from their steeples and 
housetops, watched with eager anxiety the long line of battle- 
ships that, bearing the old flag, swept past the harbour on its 
mission of wrath ; and early in November, the greatest naval 
armament that the United States had ever put to sea was col- 
lected in the waters of Port Royal. It is strange now to think 
that, with a year's warning, with full knowledge of the danger, 
the only resistance to this tremendous power was left to two 
earthworks, two miles apart, hastily erected by such civil skill 
as could be found, and with the aid of the native labour from 
the adjoining plantations, and garrisoned by a few hundred 
citizens, — militia who had never known harder service than 
the weariness of a Governor's review. And still stranger that 
the neighbouring population went on quietly with their ac- 
customed life : not a household was disturbed, not a piece of 
property was removed, and all waited with undisturbed con- 
fidence the result of this desperate contest. But so it was. 

The attack was opened soon after sunrise on the 7th of 
November, and for many hours the forts were exposed to a 
fire which, even in the annals of this war, was almost unpa- 
ralleled. It was very soon evident that all our soldiers could 
do was to show their powers of endurance; for, by midday. 



iMinMawKaatt«iaaMaHi«dawiiaBMAafBij^M«««BiBitMMMfaia 



14 THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 

the forts were demolished, the guns dismantled, and the fleet 
safe within the lines of the defences. 

It is enough to say, that, in this forlorn hope, Stephen 
Elliott and his comrades did their duty. He knew that the 
heavy war-cloud which hung upon the blue waters of the bay 
and rose over the tree-tops and floated far away over peaceful 
fields, was heavy with destruction for all he loved, and that the 
noise of battle was shaking the walls of homes in which mothers 
and wives were praying for the safety of the brave men who 
fought his guns. But it was no time to think of home and 
family and possessions. They had done all that brave men 
could do, all that was left to do was accomplished, and the 
weary and disheartened troops secured their difficult retreat to 
the main. There Captain Elliott, with his company of artil- 
lery, was placed on the line of inner defence which had been 
determined by General Lee, and which, under various com.- 
manders, was successfully held from then until the spring of 
1865. It is not necessary to repeat the history of that occupa- 
tion. It was a long and weary watch. It lasted through cold 
and bitter winters, and hot and sickly summers, but it was 
never broken. The forces of the United States were driven 
back in effort after effort to effect a lodgment on the main- 
land, and until the war ended their power was bounded by 
the navigation of their gunboats. In this arduous but com- 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



15 



Ur^h-^cyL^ 



paratively obscure service Captain Elliott spent many months. 
His enterprise, alike prudent and bold, the unbounded confi- 
dence of his men, his thorough and minute knowledge of the 
whole country, made him pre-eminently useful. He indulged 
in no fretful longing for promotion, no impatient anxiety for 
a sphere of larger ambition. Where his duty was appointed, 
there his whole energy was displayed. His services were soon 
recognized by his promotion to a majority; but the time had 
come when a larger opportunity was to be given him, and 
vfeb££^ he was to identify his name for ever with the proudest 
chapter in the history of his State. 

Soon after the war commenced, it was evident that the 
United States Government would put forth all its strength 
for the reduction of Charleston. This was but natural. Not 
only was Charleston the most important port of the Confe- 
deracy, but it was the symbol of the Revolution. In its Con- 
vention was signed the first Act of Secession, in its harbour 
was fired the first hostile gun, and upon the ramparts of Fort 
Sumter had the old flag first been lowered in acknowledged 
defeat. The port was blockaded, the entrances to the har- 
bour obstructed, and all that military skill, individual courage 
and unstinted national expenditure could compass, was concen- 
trated against it. It is not for me now to tell the story of that 
famous siege, to describe the patient skill of Beauregard, the in- 



rr-^^ir^n- 



L^ 



i6 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



domitable energy of Ripley. It is sufficient for me to say that 
days ran into weeks, and weeks grew into months, and months 
became years, and still on the walls of Moultrie, on the ram- 
parts of Sumter, on the low, dark earthworks of Fort Wagner, 
and along the beach of Morris Island, the sentries paced the 
line of their unbroken outposts and cried " all is well," and 
the heart of the whole Southern land was with us. The great 
armies of Virginia and the West, as they paused in their own 
heroic labours, listened with proud sympathy to the story of 
the stubborn conflict. Brave men among our enemies did 
honour to our steadfastness, and the curiosity of other and 
older nations "^ proud in arms" kindled into generous admi- 
ration. But the p sxyading skill and courage of our adver- 
saries at last found .their hour of vantage. The disastrous 
landing on Morris Island was effected. For days and nights 
the fierce attack and the steady repulse moistened with blood 
the island sands. Slowly and sternly the stained and shat- 
tered works of Fort Wagner were abandoned, and finally the 
island was evacuated. The whole power and energy of the 
attack was then concentrated upon Fort Sumter ; and under 
a fire which no human work could stand, its walls crumbled, 
the great fortress was battered into a mass of almost shapeless 
ruin, and it was found necessary to withdraw the garrison of 
regular artillery, who, under their heroic commander. Colonel 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 1 7 

Rhett, had fought it to the water's edge. For a moment the 
heart of the city sank. Through sad and weary months it 
had borne disaster within and confronted danger from with- 
out^ but now, indeed, it seemed as if the touching lament 
poured out thousands of years ago over Troy, might be 
uttered by all who loved her — 

" The spear, the spear hath rent thy pride j 
The flame hath scarred thee deep and wide ; 
Thy coronal of towers is shorn. 
And thou most piteous art, most desolate and forlorn." 

But General Beauregard determined not to abandon the 
fort. It might not be the key to the harbour, but its occu- 
pation by the enemy would be a dangerous advance, and the 
means of further and final success. And in that spirit of 
soldierly pride which has been the motive power of many a 
high achievement, he determined to hold what had been so 
early won and so long kept. General Beauregard selected 
Major Elliott to take command of the fort. At that time 
he was at the Stono river, where he had been sent on 
special and important service. He accepted this duty as he 
did all others, modestly and resolutely, and on the night of 
the 4th of September, 1863, he crossed the harbour and en- 
tered upon his command. To undertake this duty required 

Q 



i8 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



>xr/'yx- 



/^- 



something higher than ordinary courage. There were brave 
men who considered it hopeless. Few beheved that those 
ruins could resist the force which had so far destroyed them, 
and iV, )i i i.n ; f^rH that the soldiers who entered these broken 
walls and shattered casemates, went there to die, because the 
honour of their State required it. To perform this dtEEjrie- 
quired more — it required the facility of imposing his own re- 
solution upon every man of his command, and centring into 
himself the unwavering confidence of those whom he directed. 
It required calmness, self-possession, and that indomitable will 
which, by some strange influence, seems to impart to the very 
dead material, the stone and brick and wood with which 
brave men work, a power of living resistance. This duty he 
undertook, and this duty he performed. The very weakness 
of the fort he converted into its strength ; for when the front 
walls had fallen, with the aid of his engineer. Major Johnson, 
a companion every way worthy of him, he tunnelled through 
the mass of ruins ; and every succeeding bombardment only 
made his means of communication and protection stronger. 
But I will not attempt a detailed account of his service. You 
all know that he had scarcely taken his command when, on 
the 7th September, Admiral Dahlgren determined to test Gil- 
more's assertion that Sumter was " a harmless mass of ruins," 
summoned the fort to surrender. General Beauregard tele- 



V 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. I9 

graphed to Major Elliott to reply to Dahlgren that he could 
have Fort Sumter^ when he took it and held it. You all 
know how^ on the night of the 9th September, thirty launches, 
supported by a portion of the naval force, attacked the fort 
and were signally repulsed, leaving one hundred and thirteen 
[T'^""^ in the hands of the garrison. You all know how the 
fort was held until the enemy, in sullen confession of their 
inability to take it, confined their hostile demonstrations to 
distant and ineffectual bombardment. You all know the 
weary labour, the heroic endurance, the steady courage, which 
stood through all this and conquered. Mr. Speaker, history 
may write another judgment than ours upon the justice of 
the cause in which we fought : the firing of the first gun upon 
Fort Sumter may be remembered in after days as the first 
rash act of a wild and fatal delusion : but when, in the 
early summer of 1864, Major Elliott left those ruined walls 
to join the army in Virginia, he had carved upon their mas- 
sive fragments a story of Carolina chivalry so simple, so noble, 
so true, that it will for ever kindle the sympathy of brave men 
for the State he loved, and temper the censure of just men 
on the State he served. 

For his services in Fort Sumter Major Elliott was rapidly 
promoted, and in 1865, as Brigadier-General, he joined the 
army of Virginia. He was placed upon the lines near Peters- 



I I 




20 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



burg. Soon after his arrival the famous mine was sprung, 
and a portion of his brigade was destroyed by the explosion. 
While rallying his men to the brilliant and bloody repulse 
which followed^ he was shot in the shoulder,— a painful and 
dangerous wound, which paralyzed entirely his nj^ ^ii arm. 
After long confinement to the hospital, he was enabled to re- 
sume his duties, although with great difficulty, and was sent 
back to Carolina and placed in command at James' Island. 
Here he remained until the evacuation of Charleston, from 
which place he moved with General Johnston in his effort to 
effect a junction with General Lee. He was severely injured 
at Bentonville, and this, with the consequence of his wound, 
compelled him to obtain a furlough and return to the State, 
which he reached just before the final surrender of the armies 
of the Confederacy. 

The cause for which he had bravely fought was lost ; the 
army in which he had served was disbanded ; his home was 
in the possession of the United States armies ; his once rich 
and powerful kinsmen were in exile and in poverty. In the 
same spirit of quiet resolution with which he accepted high 
responsibilities and met great dangers, he submitted to ne- 
cessity. He went back among his old slaves, and was warmly 
welcomed in their new condition. They would gladly have 
joined in the restoration of his estate ; but the policy of the 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



2T 



aJ- 



Government cf the Souths unfortunate in that as in many 
other cases, forbade the arrangements which he would have 
made. At that time, as we all know, neither the friends who 
loved him, nor the State which owed him so much, had the 
power to aid him. He removed his family to a hut on the 
seashore, which, in former days, had been a rough shelter in 
his fishing expeditions ; and there, day after day, in sight of 
his own house, within sound of the labour on his own plan- 
tation, amid the scenes which recalled the bright hours of 
his boyhood, his pleasant and prosperous manhood, he fished, 
and, crossing to the neighbouring village of Hilton Head, 
carried himself the fish which he had caught, to sell for 
his subsistence. The sight of this simple, quiet, brave man, 
won respect from all. General Gilmore, who had com- 
manded the United States forces while General Elliott was 
at Sumter, and whose headquarters were then at Hilton Head, 
in a spirit worthy of his reputation as a soldier, asked of the 
Executive his pardon as a special personal favour, and it was 
granted. And it is a fact worthy of our reflection, that in 
the election for members of Congress riimi ^y^\ TTiI^im ^ in 
1865, the entire vote of the Northern settlers on that island 
was given to him. He was a member of tins" House of Re- 
presentatives when the war broke out, and was again elected 
after it closed. From that time he was our colleague here, 






22 THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 

and I need scarcely recall his conduct. Wise^ practical^ and 
conciliatory in his counsel, he never affected a sentiment he 
did not feel. 

He believed that the issues we had made were irrevocably 
decided against us ; that the interest and honour of the State 
required that she should lay broadly the foundations of the 
new life she purposed to lead ; that the sooner her legislation 
was conformed to the constitutional requirements of the Go- 
vernment, the better for all her people, white or black. In 
this sense he spoke and voted. Just as he had done his duty 
before, so, under the new system which he had accepted, was 
he prepared to do his duty again. And to-day his strong 
common-sense view of the duty which lay before him, his 
freedom from all passion in the perplexing questions which 
surround us, his undisturbed consciousness of his own purity 
and honesty of purpose, and the consideration which his emi- 
nent services had w^on, would have made him an invaluable 
counsellor. But soon after the last regular session he sick- 
ened : his constitution had been exhausted by the exposure 
of camp, the confinement of beleaguered garrisons, the suf- 
fering of wounds — and he died. His last request was that he 
should be buried by the side of his mother. 

He was faithful to us in his life — let us be true to his 
memory. The cause in which he fought has perished. The 



THE LATE GENERAL STEPHEN ELLIOTT. 



23 



great chieftain whose commission he bore is a worn and dying 
captive, the flag under which he served is furled and put 
away for ever, and over his dust in proud triumph floats the 
" Star-Spangled Banner." But if we are ever to look again 
upon that banner as the symbol of a common and a re- 
united country, its stars must shine kindly upon our dead, 
and " its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the 
land," must cast no shadow of shame on the graves of men 
like him. 



^<55^^^^r9=S^ 



PRINTED BY J. E. TAYLOR AND CO., 
LITTLE aUEEN STREET;, LINCOLn's INN FIELDS. 



